Philip J. Richter looks at
how to progress from simply taking snaps to slow photography and ‘making’ pictures …
It’s easy to take lots and lots of photos with today’s digital cameras. Years ago, you had to be more careful what you took, when you had to keep putting expensive rolls of film in your camera. Some people are snap-happy. At tourist sites you may see them ‘hoovering’ up the scene with their camera – taking pictures of anything and everything, before jumping back in their car or coach. Little thought goes into this kind of photography and, not surprisingly, when the pictures are reviewed later they can be quite disappointing – ‘That’s not how I remembered it!’ they say to themselves. Sometimes the snap-happy behave almost like hunters, intent on capturing their images, grabbing their photographic prey. This predatory approach to photography even carries over into some of the language we use: photoshoots, image capture, taking a photo, and so on. The snap-happy can even be quite aggressive to those who get in their way. That sort of photography doesn’t sit well with spirituality.
Spirituality relates best to patient, slow photography, which
takes the time to stop and look, to wind down and be truly present, to see with
the ‘eyes of your heart’,1 to ‘receive’ or ‘make’ a picture, rather than ‘take’
it. One way of cultivating a slower approach to photography is to limit yourself
to, say, thirty six images a day (as if you were still using a film camera) –
that way you find yourself taking more care over each one, rather than shooting
mindlessly everything you see. Another way is to put your camera away for, say,
thirty minutes when you arrive at a tourist site or somewhere else you’ll be
photographing. Begin by just using your eyes. Look around you and move to
different vantage points, seeing things from different perspectives. See where your
attention is drawn. Where is the energy in the scene? What is moving you? What is
beautiful in the scene? What is comical? What is majestic? What is awesome?
What is melancholic? What personal associations has this scene for you? Only
then will you begin to have a sense of what you want to convey in your photo –
and the chances are that you will make a photo that is far more meaningful than
a casual snap taken by a tourist.
Another way of cultivating a slower approach to photography
is again to put away your camera at first and, this time, pick up paper and
pencil and start drawing what you see. You don’t need to be a good artist at
all, as the drawing is not intended to be shared. It’s just a way of helping
you spend time actually looking intently at your surroundings. Then, after you
have been drawing for at least half-an-hour, pick up your camera again. By now
you will probably have a much better sense of what you want to photograph in
this time and place and what will be the centre of attention. In the autumn of
2015 the Rijksmuseum art gallery in Amsterdam invited it visitors to put away
their cameras and start drawing: ‘The problem now is … that we look at things
quickly, fleetingly, superficially. We are easily distracted: by other people,
our own thoughts, a little device vibrating in an inside pocket. Wouldn’t it be
nice if we could look a bit closer, a bit better. Maybe we have to learn how to
look. The good news is, we can. It is not difficult, and everyone can do it: by
drawing!’2 You see more when you draw, even if you don’t reckon to draw very
well. Of course the word ‘photography’ comes from the Greek words photos,
meaning ‘light’, and graphos, meaning ‘writing’ or ‘drawing’, so maybe there
is something rather appropriate about drawing with a pencil before ‘drawing with light’.
The Japanese spiritual writer, Kosuke Koyama, used to
recommend his readers to discover ways of slowing their lives down to ‘3 mph’,
metaphorically, if they wanted to reconnect with their true selves. He claimed:
‘God walks “slowly” because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much
faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed. It
is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are
accustomed. It is “slow” yet it is lord over all other speeds since it is the speed
of love. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, whether
we are currently hit by storm or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed
we walk and therefore it is the speed the love of God walks.’3 A ‘3 mph’
approach to photography can help cultivate a slower, more measured take on everyday
life – and vice versa.
A famous story is told about two sisters in Luke’s Gospel:
‘Now as they went on their way, he (Jesus) entered a certain village, where a
woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who
sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted
by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my
sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But
the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many
things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which
will not be taken away from her.”’4 There are many layers of meaning in this
story, but, on this occasion at least, the two sisters behave very differently
and it is said that Mary ‘chose the better part’. Mary isn’t distracted by
frantic activity. She doesn’t allow herself to be rushed, but instead
completely focuses her attention on her visitor – and perhaps, just maybe, she would
have made the better photographer!
As the Welsh priest-poet, R. S. Thomas, once said: ‘the
meaning is in the waiting’.5
This is an
extract from Spirituality in Photography:Taking pictures with deeper vision by Philip J. Richter. Spirituality in Photography is out now
in paperback, priced £9.99. The inaugural Spirituality in Photography Award is
open too – free to all and with a chance to win £50 of DLT Books. Why not sign
up and enter here?
1 Ephesians 1:18
3 Kosuke Koyama, Three Mile an Hour God, London: SCM,
1979, 7
4 Luke 10:38-42
5 ‘Kneeling’ from R.S.
Thomas, Not that he brought flowers,
London: Hart-Davis, 1968, 32
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